Raccoons are one of nature’s cuter animals. They look soft and cuddly. They have been in countless cartoons, movies, and more. But, as always, there is a dark side to the raccoon. They can be very destructive, and will eat just about anything. Some bacterial diseases which affect raccoons are leptospirosis, listeriosis, tetanus, and tularemia. They can get ring worm, rabies, and all sorts of nasty stuff. They can also be very dangerous. If you ever see a raccoon in the wild most likely it will run from you. But if for any reason it thinks it’s cornered and can’t get away, they will fight and they will win. They have very sharp teeth and claws and will tear you up.

I got a call a few days ago; they had a raccoon in their attic and said it has torn up their AC ducts. Later that day, I went over there and realized pretty quickly that they were not exaggerating. It had completely destroyed their entire duct system. Guess he thought he needed some free AC too.

He was getting up into the attic through a small opening where the man had installed a roof over his porch. It was an afternoon in the beginning of summer so of course it was 140 degrees in the attic, but that’s one of the perks of being pest control guy. I thought the raccoon had done me a favor by tearing up the ac vents, but they had closed off one of the few vents left so that they were no long cooling the attic, alas it was hot.

But I set three traps up there and said I would be back in two days. And if they heard anything before then, to give me a call. The next day I got a call, the raccoon was caught in a trap over one of the ceiling vents and was proceeding to rip it out of the ceiling. When any animal gets caught in a trap, they tend to grab anything they can and pull it in the trap with them. When I got to the trap a few hours later, he had it full of insulation, parts of ac ducts, any whatever else he could reach.

I got my dad to go with me so that he could help me get him out of the attic. It wasn’t a very big attic and was hard to maneuver around in. They did have attic stairs so it wasn’t too bad. Well, we got him outside and the customer’s dogs went nuts. I am sure they terrified the poor raccoon.

I got him to the release site; it has a stream and a lot of trees and then talked to him about the dangers of an attic and why they shouldn’t be his home. I think the entire experience for him was enough to keep him out of people’s attics. It was a good release, he darted out like a shotgun blast, ran down the hill into the stream, and back up the hill. Then we lost him. Hopefully, he will adapt to life in the wild and make new raccoon friends.

That was part one of the raccoon job. The client had said that they thought there was more than one of them. I didn’t think this was true, but to be sure, I left two traps up there just to see. It turns out, what I caught was the mama. She had a little litter up there.

I went back two days later and had three more of the little guys. They were too young to be released into the wild, so I found a rehabilitator that was willing to finish the job of the mother so that they would have a chance to survive. Cost a little more money on my part, pretty much all of my profit, but that’s OK.

I left one trap just to see if I could catch another one. But alas, the problem was solved. We had closed off the hole that they were getting into and they had no more raccoons. They had even had time to fix the torn up AC ducts.

All and all, it was a pretty successful job. Even though we didn’t make a profit on this one, the client is happy and so am I. I know that we gave the little guys a chance. It’s always a good idea to check your attic for holes so that critter’s don’t have access.

Till next time,

Shane Young

Operations Manager

For more pictures of the damage and raccoons visit: https://www.facebook.com/TheBugsEnd?ref=tn_tnmn

Recently, I saw this story on the local news about people catching hogs and how land owners could call their local animal control so that they could set you up with a pest control professional who deals with hogs. I thought I should be one of the guys they call for hog jobs. So I gave them my name and number and it has really worked out for me so far. In the two weeks since I did that, I have got probably about five calls. No hog round ups yet, so far it has all been work in people’s attics. People have been calling me about, squirrels, birds and such. This week’s blog is about one of those calls.

I got a call while I was in Center doing a WDI. It’s amazing I got the call because Verizon sucks in the Center-San Augustine area. The elderly woman had called telling me she had some birds in her attic. I thought easy enough, block off the open areas of the attic, wham bam, done. Well, the next day I did all that, and told the customer if they heard it after about a week give me a call and I will go back and check it out.

She calls me two days later, she still heard it. I said “OK, it’s probably stuck in the attic, give it a few more days and let us see if it stops singing.” Well, she still heard it after three more days. My girlfriend had had surgery that weekend and I couldn’t go back till that Monday. So all weekend I was dreading going back into that attic. This attic at the center was about two feet high and you have to crawl through the entire thing. The first time I went up there I was drenched with sweat when I came back down about an hour later.

So I decided if I have to go back I will go in the morning when it’s cooler, so I call her up and tell her I am coming first thing Monday morning. I couldn’t sleep because I was dreading this attic. I got up at six (way too early for me), left by seven and was there by eight. Got everything ready and knocked on the door. She opened the door and let me in, I took five steps in and heard this chirping noise.

She said “Did you hear that, that’s it.” I couldn’t help but smile. I said “If anyone ever tells you the Lord doesn’t have a since of humor, you tell them to give me a call. That is not a bird.” Her next question was “Well, what is it?” Who knows what was going through her mind, for all she knew it could have been something much worse than a bird. Turns out, her smoke detector battery was going out and it was letting her know. For whatever reason, it didn’t think it would be prudent to tell me the first time I was there. So I took it down and changed the battery for her. Then I told her about the rule about spring forward and changing batteries in the smoke detectors.

The one thing that I like the most about this job is you never know what’s going to happen next. It tends to make life a little more exciting. After working other jobs that are based on routine day in and day out, this job gives me one more reason to wake up in the morning, if nothing more than just to see what’s to come.

They had called another pest control company and got no result. The squirrels were still there. Before that, they called one of the big name pest control companies and they refused to even attempt the job. Then they called us, The Bug’s End.

They had had problems with these things for several months. The big name company didn’t really care about that. Animal problems almost always take more than one trip out to the house to end the problem and they didn’t want any part of that. The other pest control company didn’t understand or didn’t care to actually address the problem.

The problem was that there was a tear in the screen of the gable vent on one side of the house. How you can get rid of squirrels without closing up their access to get into the house is beyond me. To my detractors, yes, you could kill the entire population of flying squirrels in a five mile perimeter, but short of a small nuclear devise, this isn’t going to happen and believe me, getting the government to give you a small nuclear weapon is not going to happen. Besides it would probably destroy your house ending the need to kill an entire population of flying squirrels.

We at The Bug’s End are not only worried about ending your current problem, we are also concerned with ending the problem for the foreseeable future. The other pest control company did set some snap traps and let us say they did kill all the squirrels getting into the attic (unlikely). What’s to stop the next infestation of more squirrels, or worse bats, or who knows what. The only long term solution was to close off the hole in the screen to the attic and then deal with flying squirrels.

This is one of those cases when you have to be smarter than the squirrel, and I am. The Bug’s End is licensed by the state of Texas to trap fur-bearing animals in and around your house (most pest control companies are not). Whenever possible we don’t kill the offender in question. So whenever you have an animal in or around your house that you don’t want, give us a call and let’s see what can be done. No job too big or too small.

I will be here all night, don’t you worry. Now that I have you rolling in your chairs, at least the ones of you sitting in chairs with wheels, now let’s get down and dirty about my arch nemesis, The Termite.

How does a tiny insect tear down your house, well, I thought you would never ask. There’s power in numbers (same thing happens with Liberals). The sad fact is, if you don’t know what to look for, you can have you can have termites in your house for years and years without ever knowing it. One large termite queen can lay over one thousand eggs per day and the life time of a queen can be 50 up to years. You think she can remember all their birthdays? I doubt it. Man, I am bringing it tonight!!!! I should have been a comedian, not too many Irish comedians though. Irish jokes are like, “You know what happened to my grandmother the other day, yeah, she died”, but I digress.

Back to termites. Termites have different casts. You have the reproductives, soldiers and workers.

There are a few different types of reproductives. One type is the Alates, the young winged reproductives of both sexes. From time to time about 100 to 1000 alates leave the colony for a mating and colonizing flight. After mating a pair settles down at a suitable site like a rotting scar on a tree or your house, they will establish a new colony. These will become de-alates, the king and queen of the new colony should they be lucky enough to survive. Most of these will die within hours of leaving the original colony but it only takes one pair to do thousands of dollars in damage. As the number of individuals in the colony grows, the more workers are available to help the young queen to care for the brood. After three to five years the number of individuals is already so large, that the colony of a pest species can turn into the damaging stage.

Workers are sterile, wingless and blind, males and females. Their cuticle is unpigmented and not hardened; therefore the animals are confined to a dark and moist environment. Workers build the nest and galleries, they fetch food, care for the brood and feed reproductives and soldiers. The worker’s life span is one to two years.

The last cast is Soldiers, like workers they are sterile, wingless and blind, males and females with an unpigmented, unsclerotized cuticle. Soldiers defend their colony from intruders by the use of powerful jaws and/or by ejecting a white sticky repellent from an opening on their head. Soldiers can’t feed themselves, they have to be fed by workers. Usually the number of soldiers is much smaller than the number of workers. Soldiers can be mandibulate or nasute, depending on the species. Therefore soldiers can be used for the identification of termite species. The life span of the soldiers is one to two years.

Termites have a purpose in the environment. They are very effective in helping to keep forest litter down. It’s when they get to our homes, businesses, and anything else we have made of a wood based product, that we start to have problems. If you think you have termites in your house, give The Bug’s End a call and we will come out for free and see what’s going on.

OK, OK, there have been so many requests for more jokes, so here is one more (you always want to leave them wanting).

Recently we have been getting a lot of really bad roach jobs. Not only are they unpleasing to look at, they can also carry several types of bacteria that can be really bad for our health.

Most people know about the fire triangle. Fire can’t happen unless you have oxygen, heat, and fuel. Roaches have kind of the same thing going on. They need heat, water or moisture, and food. Without any of those things it’s going to be very hard for the roaches to hang out and build a large population. In this blog, I am going to talk about how you can keep the roach population down.

First part of the roach triangle, is heat. Roaches, like us, are tropical creatures. Unlike us, though, they can’t regulate their body temperature. When they are cold, they basically just stand around and don’t move. It would help if we were willing to keep our house at 50 degrees or so, but most of us are not. It may not matter anyways because many of our appliances put out heat. There is not a whole lot that we can do make this part of the roach triangle work for us. So, moving on to the second part.

Water or moisture, is what we can at least keep down. You should check all of your pipes for leaks periodically. That’s the obvious way for roaches to get water. Appliances, like your refrigerator or a coffee maker, condensate. Condensation is enough moisture to keep a roach population growing and strong. Most of the worst roach infestatons in a house are always right behind the refrigerator.

The third part of the roach triangle is food. It’s very important to take out the trash once or twice daily. Also, after you eat, wash the dishes right away so they can’t get remaining food on our plates. Cleaning behind the refrigerator and stove will get rid of food that falls back there. The first thing I do in a bad roach job is move the refrigerator and stove.

Sometimes the reason people can get roaches can be just bad luck. You can bring them with you when you move. Roaches are very hardy creatures, they can eat glue, soap, cardboard, and many other things made of plants or animal fats. They will also eat each other. The young ones actually eat the poop of the adults. That’s both neat and nasty!!!

When it gets to a certain point, you may not be able to get rid of them yourself, and when that happens give us a call!!!

Straight from the life and times of a pest control expert. This was the most interesting call we have received at The Bug’s End to this point so far.

I was at a customer’s house this morning when I got a call. The first thing this person said was that she was a lawyer. Now, as a business you really don’t want lawyers calling you up out of the blue, but I did nothing wrong as she was calling about a client of hers. Her client’s grandmother had 7 cats and it had got to the point that she couldn’t take care of them anymore. We the lawyer said she had seen many episodes of “Billy the Exterminator” and thought she should try some pest control companies and see if one of them could help out her client. Well, she called me.

She told me the situation and I said, “Yes ma’am, we can do that”. So a few minutes later I got a call from the actual client and told me a little more and I said I would meet her at the house.

I showed up at the house and met her and we walked around the house. If you don’t know what cat urine smells like, you should visit this house and you will never forget it again. If a stench could kill, this would have been it. When I met her she had just got something to eat and she didn’t want to eat in the house. I couldn’t really blame her, so I got to work one kitty at a time.

Now being a cat owner all my life, I thought this would be a little coaxing and the cats would be gone. I have never been more wrong in my life. After about 10 minutes of chasing cats, I decided that I would come up with a different game plan.

I had them trapped in a bathroom where 6 of them were hiding. This bathroom also had the washer and drier in it as well, and behind those were the cats. I had a Snarem Pet Capture Noose, which is basically a pole with a noose on it. Now, I have caught my own cats with it, but they are pretty slow. I would need to slip it up over their head, then take them and put them in a live trap. I only have four that are big enough to hold a cat. I thought I would be able to put more than one in a trap, but the thought of having one get out and having to trap it again killed me. It took around two hours for the first three cats.

After that I remember the client saying one was in the bed room and was friendly. After the first three, I could use a friendly one. The cat was friendly, until I got it in the noose and it turned unfriendly very quickly. But I got it in the trap.

Then I decided that I needed a break, and besides that, the cats were really starting to figure out my strategy. Therefore, I needed to come up with a new one. The important part was that there were four down, and three to go.

I took the first 4 to the humane society. While I was there, I called up a co-worker and we decided to go after the cats together. Now there was only one cat left in the bathroom. With me on one side and the co-worker on the other, there were able to get it with the noose. Five down, two to go.

But where were the other two? I looked behind the stove and there was one. We tried to get it right then, but it escaped and ran into the bathroom. Same plan as last time. Six down, one to go.

Now where is the last one? We finally looked behind a mattress on its side, and there are not one, but two cats. Before our very eyes these things are making carbon copies of themselves. As I peak behind the mattress, one of them darts out and back to the bathroom, but the other is still there. So with me closing off one side, and my co-worker on the other, we get the noose over its head and get it into another trap. That’s seven down and one to go.

The last cat was in the bathroom, and it was a little quicker and more active than the others. After I tried the before mentioned tactic and failed a couple of times, the cat is out in the open. My co-worker actually caught the cat mid-jump with the noose. He later told his friends, “The War Story”, as I like to call it.

There are a few things I learned from this. You would not believe how much agility a cat has until you actually try to catch a semi-tame one. I actually had cats climbing up the walls. Also with this job, you never know what tomorrow will bring. Another thing I learned was that I watch too much TV. Have you ever seen that video clip of the animal control guy with the cat and it somehow gets loose and bites the guy in the area no guy should ever be bitten? That image was in my mind the entire time this was going on.

All and all, it’s kind of sad. Taking the cats to the humane society almost ensures they will be euthanized. Because of the fact that the cats cannot be released, or find a new home. They seemed very scared throughout the whole ordeal. The grandmother, whose husband had just died a month ago, will now lose what she called, “Her babies”. She was in the hospital when all this was going on.

The cats were being held in a condition that could be called animal abuse, because they were in their own feces. The grandmother couldn’t really take care of herself anymore, much less the cats too. Just living in that house with the smell and the bacteria was not good for her health.

Well with that I am off to bed, to get ready for tomorrow (a tomorrow with no cats, hopefully). Hope you all have a great day, and give The Bug’s End a call for all your pest/animal control needs.

This week I am going to take my state test to be a certified applicator. It doesn’t really do a lot to make me a better exterminator. It’s mostly about rules and regulations. As far as the actual exterminating goes, there is nothing that will ever replace actual field experience.

The Bug’s End got to catch our first mammal. It was a skunk that had made its home under a customer’s house. If you do anything in this job, it will be to learn from your mistakes. For this part of the company, I had to buy a bunch of traps. Some of the traps open from both ends. All those traps did was feed the skunk. It would set off the trap, but I guess he never got his whole body in the trap and it would just hit his butt and it would back right out. I am pretty sure he thought he was living in some fantasy-land, and every night sardines would just show up at his front porch.

After the second day of failure, I decided to try a different approach. I got a trap that only opens from one end and put the bait at the very end. The effect was he had to get his entire body into the trap.

I was very nervous going to check the trap on the day of the capture. After three days, I really didn’t want the customer to have to wait another day. But then I got there, and was relived to find out that he was finally caught. Then came the question, how do I get him out of there without a) him spraying me or b) making the entire back yard smell like a skunk?

After talking to the skunk for a while and explaining our situation and why he had to leave; I very carefully maneuvered him out from under the house. I then covered him with a tarp, picked up the trap, and slowly made my way to the truck. At one point he did spray his nasty, and fortunately, it hit the tarp.

I called the customer, and she came out to meet the skunk. I don’t think either party was very happy to see the other. The customer was very happy to see the skunk leave.

The release went off without a hitch. I had to explain to him, that this would be the last time we would meet, and that I didn’t need ANYTHING to remember him by. He didn’t spray me, so I guess he understood. I did have my dad out there with a camera (see the company facebook page). After releasing the skunk, he walked about very slowly and turned and went after my dad. Dad ran away from the little guy, but then the skunk turned and walked in the direction I wanted him to go from the beginning.

Well, that’s it the story of our first skunk. It is probably the most harmless animal we deal with, but there is a lot of caution needed not to get sprayed. If you do choose to trap these animals yourself, be careful they can carry rabies. And the spray not only stinks, but it can temporarily blind you if you get it in your eyes.

Hope you enjoyed this week’s blog and don’t forget to wish me luck in the test this week. Hope you all have a great weekend and give us a call with all of your pest control needs.

I was at a client’s house the other day doing a Wood Destroying Insect report and we got on the subject of our new business. I was telling him about it and soon we got to trapping live animals and he brought up snakes. He asked if we took care of those and I said yes, we do. Now, this was not a small man, he was 6’2” and weighing 230 pounds or so (Everyone is big to me). He said if he ever did see a snake in his house, I would then see several holes in the floor the size of shotgun patterns. It got me to thinking, is this a rational fear or not?

First off, how dangerous is a snake? They can be very dangerous, one bite can send you to the hospital and possibly kill you. But how many people are killed a year by snakes in the United States? Take a guess? Is it 100, 1,000, 10,000, or more? The truth is only about 12 people are killed every year in the United States by snakes. Considering all the time we spend in their habitat, that’s not a whole lot, even the lowly bee kills an average of 53 people per year and man’s best so-called friend, 31 per year. So the question remains, is that enough for a fear that can make some people unable to move, scream uncontrollably, or make some of your floor hard to walk on (shotgun guy, read above)?

I would say no. It’s an irrational fear. There is no snake in our area of East Texas that is going to actually hunt you down. They are going to stay away from you if they can, but sometimes they will chase prey (mice or rats) into your house or outbuilding. This was their area long before we got here and started taking their habitat.

Snakes are actually very beneficial to our environment. As stated above, they help to keep the rodent and insect population down. During the Black Plague of Europe, an estimated 50 million people died. The plague was brought on by fleas off of rats, bet they wished they had not killed so many snakes. They do this without the need for poisons or traps and tend to leave very little behind.

I am not suggesting that you go around picking up every snake you see. Most people who get bit by snakes are walking along a path and didn’t even know they were there. Most people who die from snakebites are actually inebriated. Think of a teenage boy, drunk and messing with a snake trying to impress some girl, they get bit and don’t go to the hospital.

How do you know if one is poisonous or not? Non-venomous snakes have a spoon-shaped rounded head, and venomous snakes will have a more triangular head. This is because of the venom glands (this is less noticeable on the coral snake, if you see red touching yellow on its body, it’s a coral snake). This method is not fool proof, so be careful if you don’t know for sure. If you ever are bit by a snake, if you know it’s not poisonous, get some antiseptic on the bite. There are all kinds of bacteria in snake bite that could get infected. If you don’t know or if it is poisonous get to the hospital as quick as you can.

I know this is not going to convince anyone to get over their irrational fear, and that isn’t the point of this blog. If you do find one in your house give us a call. We will remove it, and take it back to nature where it belongs. Snakes get enough bad press, I just thought I would put in a good word for them since they can’t speak for themselves.

We always see commercials about how all the big chains in our county can offer lower prices on the products we use every day, but has anyone ever stopped to see the high cost of low prices? There are many advantages to buying local, in this week’s blog I am going to try to explain a few.

While I am not a proponent of global warming there are disadvantages concerning the environment with the big box stores. For example, fifteen of the world’s largest ships produce the same amount of sulpher oxide as all the cars in the world, I won’t get into all the other modes of transportation that’s involved. Think of all the packaging that is needed to keep food from all over the world fresh during travel time from its source to your home. A lot of that packaging is either difficult or impossible to reuse or recycle.

Some would argue that Wal-Mart brings jobs to the community, in some small part that’s true, but it doesn’t do that without taking higher paying jobs. The average Wal-Mart takes 150 more jobs than it adds from the community it resides in. Most of these jobs are without insurance or other benefits.

What about the money we spend in the big box stores, where does that go? Well, the truth is most of it is never seen by our community again. A study in Austin, Texas found that $100 spent at a local bookstore produced $45 worth of local economic activity, and $100 spent at the chain store Borders brought back only $13.

Take a look at who owns the local businesses. These are people from your church, you probably see them at local high school football games, their kids go to the same schools your kids do. They are YOUR friends. Where does the money go when you buy at national chains? First it goes to their employees and to pay utilities. Then it goes to the people who made the products. Usually these are people outside of our community or even outside of our country. What’s remaining will go to someone you will never met or will ever understand what it’s like to live on a budget.

Ever hear about some company giving a huge sum of money to a charity or non-profit organization. The fact is that non-profit organizations receive an average 250% more support from smaller business owners than they do from large businesses.

As a small business manager, I see the benefits of buying locally every day. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have anything bad to say about my national competitors, Terminex or Orkin, or the people who work for them. But when you pay them you have to pay for management, some of which the people in the local office will never meet. Without all the overhead, we can usually beat their price, without haggling. Also, their people are trained company wide. We are trained through experience right in our own backyard.

Welcome to my first blog, EVER. I am usually not one to do something like this, but it sounded like fun. In this section, about once a week, I will talk about different issues in the pest control industry and interesting things that have happened to me and our business.

While The Bug’s End is a new business, we have been in the pest control business for two years now. The story of The Bug’s End started with our owner, Danny Young, after being laid off from the forestry industry after thirty-two years. He found out that being 55 and needing a job wasn’t an easy prospect. So after looking around at different opportunities, he started Eye Spy Home Inspections. It started out slow like most new business, but eventually got so busy, that today, he is getting four to seven jobs a week.

What does a home inspection have to do with The Bug’s End? I thought you would never ask. Home inspections usually have to with the buying and selling of homes and some lenders ask to have what is called a Wood Destroying Insect Report (WDI). Then for a while he was calling someone else to come do the WDI report when he thought, why I can’t do this myself. After all, during a home inspection you are looking over the whole house and trying to find termites and other wood destroying insects anyway.

He got his license and was contracted with a company out of San Antonio called Termn8. Not only did he do the WDI’s, but also started to treat for termites and other pest. After a year of doing them by himself, he decided that it was time to bring in someone else in, that someone happened to be me, Shane.

While Eye Spy Home Inspections is still doing great, the pest control part of the business was basically working off of the home inspection customers. So, the idea for The Bug’s End came about to bring our pest control services to the masses with the same attitude for customer service that has made Eye Spy Home Inspections a success.

Well, so far, that’s it, the story of The Bug’s End. We have been open for about a month now, and are working to expand our reach in East Texas. Feel free to look around our website any feedback would be greatly appreciated. The first 10 customers to write a testimonial on our web site gets 10% off any pest control service.

Thank you for reading my blog and I hope you all have a wonderful day,

Google Reviews

The Bug's End has been my pest control provider for a couple of years and they do a fabulous job! Always on time, courteous and I never have to worry about any critters! I would highly recommend to any home or business seeking this type if service.

Shane with The Bug’s End got rid of a snake in my house. I also called him to get rid of an ant problem, which of course he did. I now get quarterly sprays for a great price. He is on time and will even come to my house on A time that works around my schedule. His coustomer service is top notch and I use The Bug’s End for all my pest control needs. I would give him 10 stars if I could!

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About Us

We are a family owned business with a customer first attitude with fast, effective, and affordable pest solutions. We feel our job is not done until you are completely satisfied. Our goal is not to have a one time customer, we want you to come back to The Bug’s End for all your pest control needs.